Some Considerations on the Mound Builders. 67 



animals carved in hard stone. They carved many stone 

 implements or ornaments, the purpose of which can not 

 now be determined. Considerable skill was used in the 

 drilling of tubes of hard stone. Their stone hatchets, 

 axes, arrow-heads and lance-heads were of the same 

 character with those of the Indians. I have not been 

 able to learn that there is any means of distinguishing 

 between them ; but in looking over the large collection 

 of the Smithsonian Institution, it appeared to me that 

 those found in the region where the Mound Builders 

 lived were in general of more elaborate design and more 

 careful finish than those found in the Atlantic States, 

 north of South Carolina. 



They made a limited use of metals. They had, how- 

 ever, no knowledge of the reduction of ores, or of melt- 

 ing and casting metal. They used hematite simply as a 

 hard stone, and native copper and silver as a malleable 

 stone. Of hematite, they made small wedges or chisels, 

 and plummets, that some suppose were used in weaving. 

 Native copper from Lake Superior was hammered into 

 hatchets, spear-heads, knives, and into various rude or- 

 naments. Native silver, also, probably from Lake Su- 

 perior, has been found in extremely small quantities, 

 hammered into leaf and wrapped around small copper 

 ornaments. 



A few traces of coarse woven cloth have been sup- 

 posed to be discovered. 



Though these people had nothing amounting to com- 

 merce, still there was a certain amount of enterprise, and 

 a certain amount of intercourse among the tribes. The 

 copper deposits on both the northern and southern 

 shores of Lake Superior were mined. The shafts they 



